Improved Barrow Downs v2.1 -- "Rise of the Barrow Wights"

[Mank]

"Cold be hand and heart and bone,
and cold be sleep under stone:
never more to wake on stony bed,
never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.
In the black wind the stars shall die,
and still on gold here let the lie,
till the dark lord lifts his hand,
over dead sea and withered land."

-J.R.R. Tolkien


Improved Barrow-Downs is a sub-mod aimed at expanding interactive gamplay for the Barrow Down/ Cardolan region.


~ Mod Features ~

Features Include: Added ancillaries, new unique buildings, option to cleanse the Barrows of their evil curse, interactive region names, added Arnor Reunification requirement, region bonuses for lifting the curse, and a more noticable difficulty while owning the haunted Barrows.

New in V 2.0: Barrow Wights will emerge to protect their tombs! Slay them for a chance to recieve ancient Numenorian treasures! Also added are new event pics and expanded scripting for a more immersive experience.

New in V 2.1: Added faction bonuses to Gundabad if they control the cursed Barrows. Also added 2 new treasure ancillaries you could aquire after battling the Barrow Wights! Typo fixes also included in this version.

New Ancillaries

~Tome of Araval~ ~Honored Dead~ ~Haunted by Wights~ ~Cursed Dagger of Westernesse~ ~Spear of Eärendur~ (new in 2.1) ~Númenórean Pendant~ (new in 2.1)

New Barrow Wight Unit & Event Preview

Restoring the Crypts

To have the chance to restore the crypts you must develop The Barrow Downs to a Large Town (8000+ population). After upgrading the settlement, an option to restore the Barrows will become available to you in your building browser.

Installation

Installation Instructions: *This Mod is not save-game compatible* After downloading, open the archive with either winrar or 7zip. Extract all contents to your Third_Age_3 folder and choose to overwrite/ merge all files and folders. The path to your Third_Age_3 folder should look something like this: C:\Program Files (x86)\SEGA\Medieval II Total War\mods\Third_Age_3 IMPORTANT NOTE FOR MOS: After installing the mod you MUST go into \Third_Age_3\ and run your cleaner.bat file! IMPORTANT NOTE FOR DAC: After installing the mod you MUST go into \Third_Age_3\ and run your RUN AFTER INSTALL.bat file!

Downloads

-MoS 1.41 here (mega) -Director's Cut here (mega) -DaC Map 1.2 here (mega) -Updated Modder's Pack v2.1 here (mega)

Special thanks goes to Spice Master for his generous Barrow Wight unit and scripting. If you like the mod, be sure to Rep Spice Master as well because v.2.0 would still be months away without his help!

I would also like to give thanks to a few others who helped make this mod possible:

My Thanks

-To Gigantus and Withwnar for helping me with building code -To Araval for sharing his ideas on gameplay dynamic -To Knight of Meh for his help on installation procedure -To the entire MOS team for adding the first "barrow" building and inspiring me to think of this at all -And finally to King Kong and the TATW team who made all this possible to begin with!

*All permissions are granted for use in other mods, please just give credit to Mank and Spice Master.

[knight of meh]

can you also add links to Moddb or even game front? Mega hates me...

also you might want to reword your op to something like

"-files compatible with Divide and Conquer V1.0 map"

just because that mod is the map not the actual DaC , and files compatible for the inevitable mis-reads or misunderstandings i.e people to whom English is not there first language

rep pending on me liking it and extra links (yes that is a bribe sort of ... maybe )

[Mank]

You bet Meh, working on the other download sites now and will re-word in just a sec.

-Glam

[Lord_Helmchen]

That was a fast work! +rep to you!

I can't try it cause I wait for MOS 1.5 befor I start a TA game again, but I be curious the see it in game!

[Wizad]

Seems really cool. I'll try it after my current campaign.

[Spice Master]

This looks promising. I may include this in the compilation release of my other minor faction roleplaying mods.

[Mank]

Thanks! Hope you like it, and if you do you are more than welcome to include it in your submod.

[ponpatj]

in Director's Cut have Improved Barrow Downs already?

[Mank]

I honestly don't know if Director added this in or not. Since this is open source there is a chance he did, but I'm not certain. I'm sure you could ask him in his mod's thread.

If the mod hasn't been added in (and Director hasn't come out with an update since I released this), the available download for "Director's Cut" should work fine.

[ponpatj]

copy Barrow_Downs Modder Pack folder in C:\Program Files (x86)\SEGA\Medieval II Total War\mods\Third_Age_3 ...not in data folder yes or no ?

[Mank]

If you're playing with "Director's Cut," you don't want the Modder Pack but the "MOS 1.41 + Director's Cut."

After downloading, extract the archive with either winrar or 7zip. Extract all contents to your Third_Age_3 folder (not the data folder) and choose to overwrite/ merge all files and folders. Be sure to check my installation notes at the top for what to do if you're not using a fresh MOS install.

[Brune]

Hat-off, i'll try in a future campaign.

[ponpatj]

thank you so much ^^

[Spice Master]

Question: I'm integrating the Modder's Pack version in to my mod and found this event only applies for FactionType turks. Shouldn't I add byzantium too? I don't see it being a problem all that often, but it seems it would be possible to miss the settlement name change, should the player wait until after reuniting Arnor in order to build restored_crypts. Another option which might be cool, would be to leave this event as is and add building the restored_crypts as an additional condition for reuniting Arnor in the union script.

;------------------ Barrow_Downs name-change --------------------

monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType turks
and I_LocalFaction turks
and FactionBuildingExists >= restored_crypts
change_settlement_name Cardolan Gorthad
terminate_monitor
end_monitor

[Mank]

Yes indeed, it is supposed to be a pre-requisite to restore Arnor. I might have forgotten to add it to one of the editions (oops!). I'll go in and make sure it is in there for all of them, thanks for pointing that out!

That said, if you are adding this mod to other work and would prefer to not have it as a pre-req then feel free to add byzantium to the factiontyes (and double check the arnor union script to make sure restored_crypts isn't in there)!

[Spice Master]

OK. I think making it a condition for Arnor Union script is actually a great idea, but it isn't included in the Modder's Pack campaign_script file, so I'll put it in.

I'm also planning to add a script that makes a random chance each turn, until the crypts are restored, for barrow wights to spawn on the campaign map at random places around the region and/or attack the settlement.

[Mank]

Ok I've updated the modder's pack to have the union script, thanks again for pointing out that I'd forgotten it. Great idea on the barrow wights! I wanted to add that to this mod but I'm still learning the ropes of modelling so that's still a bit far off for me. Glad you're doing it!

[Spice Master]

I'll post the part about the barrow wights here in case you want to use it.

[Mank]

That would be great!

[Spice Master]

Will do. Here's the wight I made for Angmar Rising submod that I plan to use for this purpose as well. Credit to Absinthia for the base model.